November 24, 2012

HOWRAH, 12th November: THE 10th state
conference of CITU West Bengal committee has vowed to launch a vigorous
struggle to defend the rights of the workers in the state. A programme to
mobilise wider sections of workers in defense of the gains that are being
attacked now in the state has been formulated from the conference.

The state conference was held at Comrade
Jyoti Basu Nagar (Howrah) and Comrade M K Pandhe Manch (Sarat Sadan) during
November 8 - 11, 2012. The conference
was inaugurated by A K Padmanabhan,
president of CITU, after hoisting the Red flag and offering floral tributes to
the martyrs.

In his inaugural speech, Padmanabhan said the
CITU would, jointly with other trade unions, resist the onslaught on the people
launched by the UPA-II government in the name of economic reforms. Referring to
the severe attacks against the workers in West Bengal in the changed political
situation, the CITU leader expressed confidence that the workers of West Bengal
will play their historical role in the present situation like in the earlier
days.

Padmanabhan said the Indian economic policy
regime has undergone a right wing shift since the introduction of neo-liberal
economic policies. The union government is acting under the dictates of the
Word Bank and the chambers of commerce in order to make the labour laws of the
country flexible. He warned that the trade unions would strongly resist such an
attempt. Already the multinational companies are not implementing the existing
labour laws. They are brazenly restricting the workers from participating in
the trade unions. Even the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the people are
being undermined by the big corporate and MNCs. The union government is a mere
spectator to these violations. In such a scenario if the labour laws are
further diluted, the workers will be subject to maximum exploitation.

Padmanabhan emphasised the necessity of
protection of the trade union rights along with ensuring of the social
security, control of price hike and universal public distribution system. He
said that CITU has always been in favour of the united workers movement from
its class outlook. After travelling a long path, all the central trade unions
have called for a 48-hour countrywide general strike on the 20th and 21st
February 2013. This has happened for the first time in the history of
independent India. The trade unions will launch a vigorous campaign to make the
general strike successful and informed that a march to parliament will be held
on 20th December to highlight the demands of the working class.

Kali Ghosh, secretary of CITU West Bengal
state committee placed the report in the conference. While placing the report
he said that the workers movement of the state is facing various attacks during
the tenure of the Trinamool Congress government. He said the situation is so
bad that the chief minister refused to meet their delegation that sought to
submit a memorandum about the growing attacks on trade unions in West Bengal.

Tapan Sen, general secretary of CITU, in his
speech exposed the anti-people nature of the neo-liberal policies being
implemented by the union government and emphasised the need for a united
struggle against these policies.

In the context of growing number of
unorganised sector workers and contractual workers, the 10th state conference
emphasised on their problems and issues in detail and outlined the path of
future programmes. Special discussions were held on these two aspects.

The delegates in the conference discussed the
issue of the contractual labour in detail, especially the growing attack on the
labour laws of the country in the name of labour market flexibility. How the
neo liberal globalisation policies are impacting the working class people of
West Bengal was also discussed in particular. The organisation has decided to
observe 12th December 2012 as the demand day for the contractual workers. The
workers shall unitedly hold their protest in front of the offices of the
department of labour in all the districts. The delegates also pointed out the
lethargy of the state government in implementing the social security and
welfare programmes initiated by the earlier Left Front government. The
delegates exchanged their experiences of the struggle against the terror
attacks against the trade union movement by the Trinamool backed hooligans. The
delegates expressed confidence of taking on this challenge in the wake of the
historic success in the state of the 28th February all India general strike
called by the central trade unions. The delegates underlined the importance of
consolidating various streams of worker movements in order to achieve the political
goals.

The 10th state conference elected the new
CITU West Bengal state committee. Shaymal Chakraborty has been re-elected as
the president and Dipak Dasgupta has been elected as the secretary.

MASSIVE RALLY

On the concluding day of the conference, on
11th November, the rally was held at
Dumurjala in Howrah. The rally turned out to be a mammoth one. Addressing the
rally, former West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said a
desperate situation is prevailing in the state in which farmers are unable to
sell produce and industrialists are shying away from investing in the state.
“The government failed to attract a single fresh investment. IT majors Wipro
and Infosys, who came here during the Left rule, are now thinking of leaving
the state,” said Bhattacharjee.

Slamming the government for taking the state
towards an industrial disaster in absence of a clear policy, Bhattacharjee
referred to how Singur has now become a desert. “Had the car manufacturing
factory come up there, about 5000 to 6000 people would have got jobs. Hooghly’s
profile would have been different by now, if our plan to bring industry to
Singur was not thwarted. At Haldia, one cargo-handling agency was driven out to
give way to a company run by a Trinamool Congress MP. This state is gradually
moving towards industrial doomsday.”

Bhattacharjee said that the transport workers
and the whole transport sector of the state are in a deplorable condition. Most
private transport vehicles are lying idle as the agencies are becoming
incapable of managing the cost of the business. Transport workers are not
getting salaries, pensions, and are compelled to resort to suicides. This is
the crude reality of the state where the salaries of ministers in the TMC-led
government had gone up from Rs 7000 during the Left Front rule to Rs 27,000
now. And the government is acting as a sleeping beauty, he criticised.

Bhattacharjee also highlighted the farmers’
misery saying they are finding it difficult to sell their crop as the “price
they are getting is uneconomical”. Explaining the current labour scenario of
the country. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee sharply criticised the Manmohan Singh
government for incessantly taking anti-people decisions that have severely
affected the working population of the country.